Page 1688 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

Not at all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
Who with a body fill’d and vacant mind [260]
Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread;

Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
But, like a lackey, from the rise to set
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night
Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn, [265]

Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
And follows so the ever-running year
With profitable labour to his grave:
And but for ceremony, such a wretch,

Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep, [270]
Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country’s peace,
Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots

What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
Whose hours the peasant best advantages. [275]

Enter Erpingham.

ERPINGHAM
My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,
Seek through your camp to find you.

KING HENRY

Good old knight,
Collect them altogether at my tent:
I’ll be before thee.

ERPINGHAM
I shall do’t, my lord.
Exit.

KING HENRY
O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts; [280]

Possess them not with fear; take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if th’ opposèd numbers